Our reflection video can be found on Michelle Schira Hagerman's youtube stream:
COOL TOOLS REVIEW AND APPLICATION PLAN:
Highlighting & Reviewing Cool Tools I have created a Pinterest page to highlight, and review, some the cool tools I saw presented on at last year's conference. Comments on each tool are included under their image. If you click on the images they will also lead you to each presenter's page.
Screencast-O-Matic I appreciated Hiller A. Spires presentation on Screencast-O-Matic, which I used in our culminating project to promote literacy. Since then I have used it for remote instruction along with Screener. At Paul Cuffee we have primarily been using Animoto and iMovie for student generated content, but I would like more of our students to begin collaborating through the use of screencast software.This is a tool that could really enrich remote, direct, differentiated and interdisciplinary instruction, project development, inter-grade level work, and more.
Google Drive Thanks in part to Cool Tools this was a breakout year for Google Drive at my school. We had previously used Drive between staff members, but the conference expanded how I was previously thinking of working with this platform. I realized; especially after listening to Rushkoff talk about how we build community, that it was vital for our students to become engaged in more collaborative online projects. With this thought in mind I worked to get our 6th-8th grade students set-up on Drive. Allowing them to share documents with their teachers; for instant feedback, and to work with their peers on documents and presentations.
One successful project involved having 6th grade students create electronic scavenger hunts. With the use of guiding questions students worked in groups of two, searched online for credible information, to answer questions pertaining to the Revolutionary War. When they found credible websites; using pre-determined guidelines, they created hyper links and inserted them below the relevant question. Once these documents had been created they were shared with another assigned group. The second group worked their way through the links looking to see if their peers had found information capable of answering their questions. This created an opportunity for students to generate and assess peer work. Also, students were exposed to the same information in more than one context; finding the links, creating the online scavenger hunt, and completing the scavenger hunt created by their peers, giving them the ability to provide input on their peers work.
Students provided mostly positive feedback about the assignment and worked steadily even when faced with difficult questions. Their instructor said it was the first time she had seen some of them actively participate during the year. The work was challenging while holding student engagement. I was pleased that it worked well in supporting the instructor, students, and content. For the instructor it helped to demonstrate how technology can be an asset in the classroom. Why it can be worth taking the time to embed electronic tools within the curriculum.
Animoto
Another beneficial Cool Tool was Animoto. I genuinely appreciate how easy this one is to teach and use. I was able to learn about this tool, and later use it, in a Literacy class at our HS. The instructor was seeking new ways to get her students excited about reading. However, she was having some trouble using standard book presentations to draw students in. Thanks to last year's conference I was able to suggest Animoto instead. Below is one trailer I created when teaching our students about Animoto:
Many of them really got excited about this project and once again I saw reluctant students working through technical and narrative difficulties in order to finish an assignment. When presentation day came the Literacy students; who could be reluctant to even write several sentences, showed one and two minute trailers, with complex narratives, about books they were proud to share with their fellow classmates. These books were then added to a reading list for students to use throughout the year. We are still working on creating an online page for these trailers, but this was a good start to what I hope will be an evolving project.
Storify
I really love Storify, but disliked that it seems to be easier for groups to log-in using Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure if this has since changed, and I am still trying to figure out how to use this one more, but enjoyed having a chance to create a group project with it at last year's conference:
If we can make this work with our school's filters it has a lot of potential for students working on building narratives; in any subject, and exploring subjects in greater depth. One place Storify could really contribute is to our various Shakespeare units. Often our students have trouble with going deeper in the text, Storify could really help our students to interact with the text; going deeper while offering greater opportunities for retention and understanding.
SEVEN QUESTION REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT:
Digital Literacies Institute Closing Reflection
Please provides a thoughtful and organized response to each question below. Your response may be in writing or it may take the form of a recorded podcast or video commentary. Feel free to be creative! All responses should be posted no later than August 5, 2013 at 5PM.
1. Describe some of the digital literacies that you learned about this week. What did you know about these topics before the week began and how have this week’s experiences contributed to your understanding of these digital literacies?
There were so many tools that I learned about during the course of this week. I have a graduate degree in Library Science, and have worked to stay current on new tools, but almost everything I went to during Cool Tools was either new or presented in a new way. For example I had already been using Scratch to teach coding to my middle school students, but loved learning about Co-Academy; a site I took back for use this year. Also, I had heard about Animoto previously, but loved having the chance to learn more about it. This built nicely into learning about Evernote and Storify for building and sharing out narrative information in new ways. Also, iMovie has alway been the bane of my existence, but with Diana's help I am happy to say my HS students were actually able to do several projects using it this past year.
Also, and I've alluded to this earlier, the week really changed the way I thought about teaching and using online tools. It helped to broaden my view beyond thinking about students gaining online skills and helped me to move towards thinking about how we create community. This lead to an improvement on how I managed instruction between two schools. Tools like Screencast-O-Matic and Screener helped me to deliver instructions to students at both schools when I couldn't be present. Also, collaborative projects (e.g. Google Drive, coding, Minecraft) helped students; with varying abilities to come together and work on similar curriculum material. Shifting my viewpoint around digital literacy has helped me to move away from being the primary leader, putting more ownership back onto my students. Lastly, while at URI, during the fall semester, I was able to share out some of what I had learned. My time at the conference helped all of us to have a broader discussion on technology implementation in schools. All of the students really had some great input and it was exciting to see, yet again, how engaging digital literacy conversations often are.
2. Now that you've had this professional development experience, how are you defining “digital literacy?” What is your personal perspective on digital literacy and how has your definition changed or evolved this week?
Again, community, community, community. I really walked away with a sense of how digital literacy could help to build so many different types of communities. I'd like to think it's because all of the attendees got along so well, but I believe it's also the potential I see for users engaging with digital literacy.
Previously, I sang the praises for how empowering digital literacy could be. I saw it as a way to engage students and teach them valuable information skills. This year I moved into viewing it as a means for collaboration, putting the emphasis back on our student users. One example that comes to mind is when we had a conflict over clubs; run during Friday afternoons, where some of my students wanted to hold a Minecraft club and others wanted to continue coding. With the help of our Technology Director we were able to enlist a student leader and a student apprentice to lead Minecraft club. It was somewhat nerve racking; especially when my student leader wasn't passing his classes and almost didn't make it to clubs, but in the end they did a great job. Not only did our students get to participate in something they wanted to do, but it was lead by students; giving them a chance to develop their own instructional and leadership capabilities. I had a number of experiences like this; where I stepped away, and let students take the reins. In the end, even with some of the bumps we faced, the benefits always outweighed the downsides. I learned a lot. Going through this experience really began to re-define my views on digital literacy. Now, I'm enjoying re-envisioning what digital literacy means to different populations and discovering how it can be shared with people from all walks of life.
3. How do digital literacies affect the way you think aboutacademic content? Describe an example of how some specific academic content is affected by changes in the ways we read, write and think with digital media texts, tools & technologies.
*I used the Quicktime app to play these in Google Chrome:
Audio Response Part 1
Audio Response Part 2
4. How do digital literacies affect teaching practices? What overarching considerations must teachers give, in general, to the interactions of digital literacies and how to teach?
*First it is important to remember that digital tools are tools just like any other. As stated EdTechTeacher:
Fundamentally, assessing multimedia activities and projects is no different from evaluating traditional assignments, such as written essays. The primary distinctions between them are the unique features and divergent possibilities associated with the respective medium. For instance, a blog has a unique set of possibilities (such as hypertext, embedded video, interactive imagery, etc) vastly different than those of a notebook (paper and pen notes and drawings within a contained document)...The first thing to realize is that you cannot separate the user from the device. iPads, Chromebooks, and tech tools themselves don’t demonstrate great learning; it’s about what students do with the technology that matters. The technology itself is simply neutral.
Assessing Student Learning with Technology Projects. (2013). retrieved July 3 2014, from EdTechTeacher Web Site: http://edtechteacher.org/assessment/
In trying to understanding how to incorporate the, "divergent possibilities associated with technology" teachers, and or students, must first move through a process of inquiry prior to incorporating any digital tool. As Grant Wiggin's discussed in his post On Genuine Vs. Bogus Inquiry: Using Essential Questions Properly, it's important to start from a place of genuine inquiry by creating a driving question. This question may be generated by the instructor or by students. Once there is a driving question teachers may work collaboratively with students, or allow students to work on their own, to decide which tool(s) may be appropriate for their work and why? Instructors may need to introduce a variety of tools to students or ask students to select from digital tools they have already used. Some considerations for selection may center around subject, cost, student capabilities, age, school filters, parental support or concern. If students are deciding on which tools to use, a rubric or discussion can be generated to dig deeper; asking students questions about why they are choosing a specific tool? How will it enhance the subject? Will help to answer their driving question(s)? Asking further questions provides an opportunity to discover considerations that may need to be taken into account before moving forward.
Depending on educator and student familiarity with incorporating digital tools it may be useful to generate an activity taxonomy similar to the one in Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development By Judi Harris and Mark Hofer (page 102) as it provides another avenue for brainstorming around digital literacies with staff and students:
.
Now, focus on your own pedagogical practice. How will your new understanding of digital literacy affect the way you teach? Describe an example of how you will differently employ a specific teaching practice in your own context as a result of what you learned this week.
Certainly, it will continue to alter how I collaborate around digital literacy. I have realized that I need to generate more readily available print materials, on digital tools for staff and students. Often times when I'm collaborating with staff and students I will show them tools on my computer. However, sometimes even this takes too much time. I run the risk of losing their interest before I can even start to engage them. Having available hard copies, with samples of lessons created using a particular tool; activity types for different subjects, grade levels, may create more successful "elevator pitches" with staff and students. I now plan on creating these materials out of work I have previously generated with staff and students. I will create materials showcasing new tools, and ideas, my hope being for these to reach a different audience. For others I plan to use more complex taxonomies to deepen our work and build stronger curriculum and unit materials.
5. During the week, you were introduced to several concerns and promising practices around digital literacy, digital pedagogy, social networking, and student voice that are circulating among communities of educators, librarians, and youth media specialists. From your perspective, what promising practices show the most potential?
With regard to promising practices,With regard to I still believe strengthening interpersonal relationships is one of the strongest. Teaching students online reading (see: Talking About Reading As Thinking Modelings the Hidden Complexities of Online Reading Comprehension) and developing the processes for real inquiry. Having that planning time with teachers, getting into classrooms, meeting with administration, and sharing out how digital literacies can push students to, "demonstrate multimodal literacies and complex thinking with their content by integrating information across print and digital text, drawing inferences, summarizing, and making novel connections...(Spires, Hervey, Morris & Stelpflug, 2012). Then employing collaborative exercises, encouraging staff and student buy in through knowledge empowerment, and finding what questions and needs are really driving the use of digital literacy at every level.
Spires, H. A., Hervey, L. G., Morris, G., & Stelpflug, C. (2012). Energizing project-based inquiry: Middle school students read, write, and create videos. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(6), 483-493
Which specific concerns are most pressing? What key takeaways will you champion in your own work setting(s) so that together, you and your colleagues can (a) implement promising practices and (b) address issues of concern?
School-wide digital literacy curriculum implementation. Since last summer that's something I have been very focused on. Jillian B., David C.M. and myself began working towards this goal just after the completion of this course; last summer. We spoke with Commissioner Gist and later contacted her about finding coaching support for Paul Cuffee's middle and high school staff. Since I'm stretched between two buildings it's been hard to really train faculty members. I had hoped we might find funding to bring in outside support, driving the introductory exchange that I've included below:
Later Jillian B., David C.M. and myself worked on an outlined proposal for the needs we would like to see funded at Paul Cuffee. I have included the outline below.
Unfortunately, soon after the start of our school year, leadership largely collapse at the school. Our Head of Schools was replaced with an Interim-Head, our Middle School Principal was fired, our High School Principal took a mental health leave, and our Elementary School Principal was covered by a year long substitute, leaving my two schools to self-govern for several months. Without consistent administration our project stagnated.
However, it was an aspiration that I never lost sight of. Although, we have not been able to complete our original goal of securing funding for staff training, I have been able to push for other shifts throughout the middle and high-school (e.g. integrating google drive into the MS curriculum, encouraging our high-school principal to seek out another staff member who can support digital literacy initiatives at our MS and HS levels). I still hope to continue working on the plan that we began drafting last summer and feel our school is finally in a better place to revisit our original proposal.
6. Consider the list of readings assigned for this course. Briefly summarize 1-2 key insights you gleaned from each cluster of readings (e.g., Digital Literacies in Context, Generating Questions, Instructional Strategies, and Next Steps). How do you see these insights connecting with ideas and experiences shared during the Institute (especially the Keynote and Digging Deeper Sessions)?
◦ If you are a graduate student, how do these readings connect to ideas in the literature base with which you are engaged?
◦ If you are a classroom teacher, librarian, or youth media specialist, what connections do you see among the readings themselves and to your experiences during the institute or in your own work setting?
7. If you had one more day in the Institute, what would you like to learn more about and why? How will you leverage your professional learning network and your new digital literacies to explore your remaining questions over the coming year?
This I Believe: Digital Literacy
PRE-PRODUCTION AND POST-PRODUCTION PLAN & REFLECTION:
The dyad page that Jillian and I created for our project includes our pre and post-production plan, using Mindmeister, here:
http://dliuri2013.wikispaces.com/Dyad+1
The website that we designed and presented for our project was published on Paul Cuffee's LibGuides page, but unfortunately the link is not yet live.
In order to access the page click here and enter:
Username: llubman@paulcuffee.org
Password: oneread1613
Our reflection video can be found on Michelle Schira Hagerman's youtube stream:
COOL TOOLS REVIEW AND APPLICATION PLAN:
Highlighting & Reviewing Cool Tools
I have created a Pinterest page to highlight, and review, some the cool tools I saw presented on at last year's conference. Comments on each tool are included under their image.
If you click on the images they will also lead you to each presenter's page.
Screencast-O-Matic
I appreciated Hiller A. Spires presentation on Screencast-O-Matic, which I used in our culminating project to promote literacy. Since then I have used it for remote instruction along with Screener. At Paul Cuffee we have primarily been using Animoto and iMovie for student generated content, but I would like more of our students to begin collaborating through the use of screencast software.This is a tool that could really enrich remote, direct, differentiated and interdisciplinary instruction, project development, inter-grade level work, and more.
Google Drive
Thanks in part to Cool Tools this was a breakout year for Google Drive at my school. We had previously used Drive between staff members, but the conference expanded how I was previously thinking of working with this platform. I realized; especially after listening to Rushkoff talk about how we build community, that it was vital for our students to become engaged in more collaborative online projects. With this thought in mind I worked to get our 6th-8th grade students set-up on Drive. Allowing them to share documents with their teachers; for instant feedback, and to work with their peers on documents and presentations.
One successful project involved having 6th grade students create electronic scavenger hunts. With the use of guiding questions students worked in groups of two, searched online for credible information, to answer questions pertaining to the Revolutionary War. When they found credible websites; using pre-determined guidelines, they created hyper links and inserted them below the relevant question. Once these documents had been created they were shared with another assigned group. The second group worked their way through the links looking to see if their peers had found information capable of answering their questions. This created an opportunity for students to generate and assess peer work. Also, students were exposed to the same information in more than one context; finding the links, creating the online scavenger hunt, and completing the scavenger hunt created by their peers, giving them the ability to provide input on their peers work.
Students provided mostly positive feedback about the assignment and worked steadily even when faced with difficult questions. Their instructor said it was the first time she had seen some of them actively participate during the year. The work was challenging while holding student engagement. I was pleased that it worked well in supporting the instructor, students, and content. For the instructor it helped to demonstrate how technology can be an asset in the classroom. Why it can be worth taking the time to embed electronic tools within the curriculum.
Animoto
Another beneficial Cool Tool was Animoto. I genuinely appreciate how easy this one is to teach and use. I was able to learn about this tool, and later use it, in a Literacy class at our HS. The instructor was seeking new ways to get her students excited about reading. However, she was having some trouble using standard book presentations to draw students in. Thanks to last year's conference I was able to suggest Animoto instead. Below is one trailer I created when teaching our students about Animoto:
Monster
Many of them really got excited about this project and once again I saw reluctant students working through technical and narrative difficulties in order to finish an assignment. When presentation day came the Literacy students; who could be reluctant to even write several sentences, showed one and two minute trailers, with complex narratives, about books they were proud to share with their fellow classmates. These books were then added to a reading list for students to use throughout the year. We are still working on creating an online page for these trailers, but this was a good start to what I hope will be an evolving project.
Storify
I really love Storify, but disliked that it seems to be easier for groups to log-in using Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure if this has since changed, and I am still trying to figure out how to use this one more, but enjoyed having a chance to create a group project with it at last year's conference:
How effective has the US government been with its recent interventions in influencing international crises?
If we can make this work with our school's filters it has a lot of potential for students working on building narratives; in any subject, and exploring subjects in greater depth. One place Storify could really contribute is to our various Shakespeare units. Often our students have trouble with going deeper in the text, Storify could really help our students to interact with the text; going deeper while offering greater opportunities for retention and understanding.
SEVEN QUESTION REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT:
Digital Literacies Institute Closing Reflection
Please provides a thoughtful and organized response to each question below. Your response may be in writing or it may take the form of a recorded podcast or video commentary. Feel free to be creative! All responses should be posted no later than August 5, 2013 at 5PM.
1. Describe some of the digital literacies that you learned about this week. What did you know about these topics before the week began and how have this week’s experiences contributed to your understanding of these digital literacies?
There were so many tools that I learned about during the course of this week. I have a graduate degree in Library Science, and have worked to stay current on new tools, but almost everything I went to during Cool Tools was either new or presented in a new way. For example I had already been using Scratch to teach coding to my middle school students, but loved learning about Co-Academy; a site I took back for use this year. Also, I had heard about Animoto previously, but loved having the chance to learn more about it. This built nicely into learning about Evernote and Storify for building and sharing out narrative information in new ways. Also, iMovie has alway been the bane of my existence, but with Diana's help I am happy to say my HS students were actually able to do several projects using it this past year.Also, and I've alluded to this earlier, the week really changed the way I thought about teaching and using online tools. It helped to broaden my view beyond thinking about students gaining online skills and helped me to move towards thinking about how we create community. This lead to an improvement on how I managed instruction between two schools. Tools like Screencast-O-Matic and Screener helped me to deliver instructions to students at both schools when I couldn't be present. Also, collaborative projects (e.g. Google Drive, coding, Minecraft) helped students; with varying abilities to come together and work on similar curriculum material. Shifting my viewpoint around digital literacy has helped me to move away from being the primary leader, putting more ownership back onto my students. Lastly, while at URI, during the fall semester, I was able to share out some of what I had learned. My time at the conference helped all of us to have a broader discussion on technology implementation in schools. All of the students really had some great input and it was exciting to see, yet again, how engaging digital literacy conversations often are.
2. Now that you've had this professional development experience, how are you defining “digital literacy?” What is your personal perspective on digital literacy and how has your definition changed or evolved this week?
Again, community, community, community. I really walked away with a sense of how digital literacy could help to build so many different types of communities. I'd like to think it's because all of the attendees got along so well, but I believe it's also the potential I see for users engaging with digital literacy.
Previously, I sang the praises for how empowering digital literacy could be. I saw it as a way to engage students and teach them valuable information skills. This year I moved into viewing it as a means for collaboration, putting the emphasis back on our student users. One example that comes to mind is when we had a conflict over clubs; run during Friday afternoons, where some of my students wanted to hold a Minecraft club and others wanted to continue coding. With the help of our Technology Director we were able to enlist a student leader and a student apprentice to lead Minecraft club. It was somewhat nerve racking; especially when my student leader wasn't passing his classes and almost didn't make it to clubs, but in the end they did a great job. Not only did our students get to participate in something they wanted to do, but it was lead by students; giving them a chance to develop their own instructional and leadership capabilities. I had a number of experiences like this; where I stepped away, and let students take the reins. In the end, even with some of the bumps we faced, the benefits always outweighed the downsides. I learned a lot. Going through this experience really began to re-define my views on digital literacy. Now, I'm enjoying re-envisioning what digital literacy means to different populations and discovering how it can be shared with people from all walks of life.
3. How do digital literacies affect the way you think about academic content? Describe an example of how some specific academic content is affected by changes in the ways we read, write and think with digital media texts, tools & technologies.
*I used the Quicktime app to play these in Google Chrome:
Audio Response Part 1
Audio Response Part 2
4. How do digital literacies affect teaching practices? What overarching considerations must teachers give, in general, to the interactions of digital literacies and how to teach?
*First it is important to remember that digital tools are tools just like any other. As stated EdTechTeacher:
Fundamentally, assessing multimedia activities and projects is no different from evaluating traditional assignments, such as written essays. The primary distinctions between them are the unique features and divergent possibilities associated with the respective medium. For instance, a blog has a unique set of possibilities (such as hypertext, embedded video, interactive imagery, etc) vastly different than those of a notebook (paper and pen notes and drawings within a contained document)...The first thing to realize is that you cannot separate the user from the device. iPads, Chromebooks, and tech tools themselves don’t demonstrate great learning; it’s about what students do with the technology that matters. The technology itself is simply neutral.
Assessing Student Learning with Technology Projects. (2013). retrieved July 3 2014, from EdTechTeacher Web Site: http://edtechteacher.org/assessment/
In trying to understanding how to incorporate the, "divergent possibilities associated with technology" teachers, and or students, must first move through a process of inquiry prior to incorporating any digital tool. As Grant Wiggin's discussed in his post On Genuine Vs. Bogus Inquiry: Using Essential Questions Properly, it's important to start from a place of genuine inquiry by creating a driving question. This question may be generated by the instructor or by students. Once there is a driving question teachers may work collaboratively with students, or allow students to work on their own, to decide which tool(s) may be appropriate for their work and why? Instructors may need to introduce a variety of tools to students or ask students to select from digital tools they have already used. Some considerations for selection may center around subject, cost, student capabilities, age, school filters, parental support or concern. If students are deciding on which tools to use, a rubric or discussion can be generated to dig deeper; asking students questions about why they are choosing a specific tool? How will it enhance the subject? Will help to answer their driving question(s)? Asking further questions provides an opportunity to discover considerations that may need to be taken into account before moving forward.
Depending on educator and student familiarity with incorporating digital tools it may be useful to generate an activity taxonomy similar to the one in Instructional Planning Activity Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development By Judi Harris and Mark Hofer (page 102) as it provides another avenue for brainstorming around digital literacies with staff and students:
.
Now, focus on your own pedagogical practice. How will your new understanding of digital literacy affect the way you teach? Describe an example of how you will differently employ a specific teaching practice in your own context as a result of what you learned this week.
Certainly, it will continue to alter how I collaborate around digital literacy. I have realized that I need to generate more readily available print materials, on digital tools for staff and students. Often times when I'm collaborating with staff and students I will show them tools on my computer. However, sometimes even this takes too much time. I run the risk of losing their interest before I can even start to engage them. Having available hard copies, with samples of lessons created using a particular tool; activity types for different subjects, grade levels, may create more successful "elevator pitches" with staff and students. I now plan on creating these materials out of work I have previously generated with staff and students. I will create materials showcasing new tools, and ideas, my hope being for these to reach a different audience. For others I plan to use more complex taxonomies to deepen our work and build stronger curriculum and unit materials.
5. During the week, you were introduced to several concerns and promising practices around digital literacy, digital pedagogy, social networking, and student voice that are circulating among communities of educators, librarians, and youth media specialists. From your perspective, what promising practices show the most potential?
With regard to promising practices,With regard to I still believe strengthening interpersonal relationships is one of the strongest. Teaching students online reading (see: Talking About Reading As Thinking Modelings the Hidden Complexities of Online Reading Comprehension) and developing the processes for real inquiry. Having that planning time with teachers, getting into classrooms, meeting with administration, and sharing out how digital literacies can push students to, "demonstrate multimodal literacies and complex thinking with their content by integrating information across print and digital text, drawing inferences, summarizing, and making novel connections...(Spires, Hervey, Morris & Stelpflug, 2012). Then employing collaborative exercises, encouraging staff and student buy in through knowledge empowerment, and finding what questions and needs are really driving the use of digital literacy at every level.
Spires, H. A., Hervey, L. G., Morris, G., & Stelpflug, C. (2012). Energizing project-based inquiry: Middle school students read, write, and create videos. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(6), 483-493Which specific concerns are most pressing? What key takeaways will you champion in your own work setting(s) so that together, you and your colleagues can (a) implement promising practices and (b) address issues of concern?
School-wide digital literacy curriculum implementation. Since last summer that's something I have been very focused on. Jillian B., David C.M. and myself began working towards this goal just after the completion of this course; last summer. We spoke with Commissioner Gist and later contacted her about finding coaching support for Paul Cuffee's middle and high school staff. Since I'm stretched between two buildings it's been hard to really train faculty members. I had hoped we might find funding to bring in outside support, driving the introductory exchange that I've included below:Later Jillian B., David C.M. and myself worked on an outlined proposal for the needs we would like to see funded at Paul Cuffee. I have included the outline below.
Unfortunately, soon after the start of our school year, leadership largely collapse at the school. Our Head of Schools was replaced with an Interim-Head, our Middle School Principal was fired, our High School Principal took a mental health leave, and our Elementary School Principal was covered by a year long substitute, leaving my two schools to self-govern for several months. Without consistent administration our project stagnated.
However, it was an aspiration that I never lost sight of. Although, we have not been able to complete our original goal of securing funding for staff training, I have been able to push for other shifts throughout the middle and high-school (e.g. integrating google drive into the MS curriculum, encouraging our high-school principal to seek out another staff member who can support digital literacy initiatives at our MS and HS levels). I still hope to continue working on the plan that we began drafting last summer and feel our school is finally in a better place to revisit our original proposal.
6. Consider the list of readings assigned for this course. Briefly summarize 1-2 key insights you gleaned from each cluster of readings (e.g., Digital Literacies in Context, Generating Questions, Instructional Strategies, and Next Steps). How do you see these insights connecting with ideas and experiences shared during the Institute (especially the Keynote and Digging Deeper Sessions)?
◦ If you are a graduate student, how do these readings connect to ideas in the literature base with which you are engaged?
◦ If you are a classroom teacher, librarian, or youth media specialist, what connections do you see among the readings themselves and to your experiences during the institute or in your own work setting?
7. If you had one more day in the Institute, what would you like to learn more about and why? How will you leverage your professional learning network and your new digital literacies to explore your remaining questions over the coming year?
Audio response for question 7: